The present invention relates to a dry composition dispenser for dispensing flowable materials, and in particular powdered or granular materials. A variety of industries utilize processes requiring dispensing of dry granular or powdered materials. These industries include agricultural mill houses where animal feeds are prepared by blending various ground seeds and grain; pharmaceutical and drug applications where medicament compositions are prepared by combining two or more dry granular or powdered materials; food processing operations where food compositions or intermediate compositions are prepared by mixing various dry granular materials; and general industrial processing involving processing and preparation of dry granular industrial products such as powdered building materials including cement, plaster, dry adhesives, and other related materials.
Although dry composition dispensers are known in the art, such dispensers are relatively complex, bulk, expensive, and often require significant maintenance. For example, currently known dispensing apparatuses for dispensing four different types of materials utilize an individual motor for dispensing each type of material from its corresponding bin or container. In apparatuses utilizing a number of dispensing motors less than the number of material bins, complex and intricate gearing is required to couple the selected motor to the desired material bin for dispensing material from that bin. Thus, a need exists for a dispensing apparatus which avoids the relatively costly, cumbersome, and high maintenance requirements of prior art dispensers.
When dispensing multiple materials, it becomes increasingly difficult to efficiently do such as the number of materials increases due to the requisite hardware and dispensing equipment necessary for performing such. In a case of dispensing ten different dry powdered materials in different proportions in order to form a single dry mix, a formulator would have to dispense each material from its material bin source in the desired amount and then transport each discharged amount, typically by conveyer, to the mixing site. The use of ten different conveyers is clearly undesirable in view of the high cost and maintenance of such conveying equipment. If less than ten conveyors are utilized, there then exists the added concern of coordinating the dispensing of material onto one or more common conveyors so that overspill does not occur. Alternatively, a formulator could transport a collection container from one bin to another and dispense desired amounts of material into the collection container until the final composition was collected in the container and such was ready for mixing. However, that procedure is undesirable as it involves transporting the collection container to ten different bins making sure that no loss of discharged material occurs. Thus, there is a need for a simple and cost effective apparatus and method for dispensing a plurality of dry materials to a single site, thereby avoiding the need for transporting the dispensed materials or transporting a collection container.